to another. i, unfortunatelily, have to leave to meet bob kissinger who is arriving to the wilson center, but will from npr will take over for me. dan, over to you. >> well, thank you. i'd like to thank the woodrow wilson center and asian research as well as ashley, himself, who is certainly driving the process intellectually and a role model in bringing strategic studies and deep knowledge of asia together, which i think is part of what we are trying to do here. i thank laura, who is in the audience, not just a research assistant, but almost a partner in the endeavor. we think the chinese are nontransparent about defense spending, and they are. try looking at u.s. defense budgets and going through the various presidential statements, omb statements, naval shipbuilding staples, and we may be too transparent. certainly confused us. we tried to bring logic to it in the end as was our task. i'd like to go through five points, if i might. the first, i think, has to do with -- i'm putting the cards on the table, a traditionalist in strategic matters in the sense that political goals drive str
